i was raking today and found this little daylily sprout hiding under the oak leaves.  under the sprout itself hid this impressive array of tuberous looking roots, all arrayed and invisible, feeding the green growth above.

daylily sprout

saint paul, minnesota

remember effie, rue, prim, clove, glimmer, and katniss?  well, they have been living in the house with us since early march. i had expected that they would be outside about three weeks ago but it has been too cold.  (yes, it’s been a little ridiculous at our house).  anyway, they finally went outside yesterday, and i got do start my spring cleaning.  these are just a few of their feathers still floating around my house.  i have a sneaking suspicion that i will be sweeping up feathers for a very long time.

golden buff chicken feathers

saint paul, minnesota

my daughter and her friend ushered in the warm weather with the first kayak outing of the season.  the lake is still 70% ice covered, but the outer, shallower, edges are all ice free.  i think we will be ice free by sunday. during their adventure, the girls found this damaged canada goose egg sitting on the bottom of the lake.  the photo doesn’t do justice to its impressive size.  one canada goose egg has the same volume as four chicken eggs.

canada goose egg

turtle lake, saint paul, minnesota

these two branches were in my back yard.  two ordinary saplings forever joined.  i find it curiously compelling.  like marriage.

last night from our kitchen window we stood in silence and watched as six (!) mallard drakes vied for the attention of one pestered hen. this morning we woke to seven deer in the back yard, four of them beddded-down enjoying the first real warmth of the season.  i am very grateful to live where i do, even if spring occasionally arrives a month late.

saint paul, minnesota

along rice creek, there are thickets of streamside willow, i believe it’s sandbar willow, with dozens, sometimes hundreds, of vertical saplings. one in every dozen trees or so ends in a fist of gnarled, chaotic growth. the growths are impossible to see in the leafy summer, and impossible to miss in winter. they are called witches’ brooms, from an earlier time when abnormalities in nature were assumed to have supernatural causes. certainly “witches’ broom” is more evocative than “a deformity in a woody plant caused by organisms like mites, nematodes, and phytoplasms.”

witches’ broom on willow

rice creek regional trial, saint paul, minnesota